From the Blog

Admiral’s Throne Snippet 2

“Isn’t this a direct and deliberate violation of the Dictates of Man?” the Commander asked with distaste.
Admiral Magnus Davenport’s lip curled and he looked down his nose at the other man.
“I am not in the habit of being questioned by junior officers,” he said strictly before continuing in a more moderate voice, “however this time and only this once I will answer the question.”
“In primus,” he lifted a finger, “technically speaking it is only the use and utilization of Bugs or other biological weapons of mass destruction on ‘imperial’ ships, citizens, and followers of Man or those planets under the protection of the Empire is a crime. None of which happen to apply to the inhabitants of the Spine,” he said flatly, “the days of the Confederated Empire are long past and once this war is over the old Confederation will either have to get its act together or find itself relegated to the trash bin of history.”
The Commander looked at him levelly.
“Even if it doesn’t break the letter of the law, it still violates the spirit,” he replied evenly.
Davenport’s eyes turned red.
“The spirit in which those laws were handed down to us was to protect humanity and the empire from the rampant use of weapons of mass destruction. Not shield the users of bio-tech weapons after they have successfully carried out an attack of their own and killed an imperial senate. Possibly setting back the agenda of the empire by years, if not decades or centuries, Commander!” he said angrily.
“What about the rumors going around that Praetor Cornwallis died by the hands of the very weapons he himself attempted to set loose on the helpless civilians of the Spineward Sectors?” pointed out the Commander.
“None of that’s been confirmed,” Admiral Magnus dismissed, “for all you and I know it’s all only a smoke screen to cover the actions of a rogue military and a government that we, unfortunately, can’t move against while still actively engaged in a war with the Gorgons. Not with the old Confederation breathing down our necks at the same time anyway,” he said harshly.
“And not while that same old Confederation is preparing to hand over three previously retired battle fleets in exchange for clear title to the Spine, Sir?” asked the Commander.
Davenport looked at him coldly.
“Sorry, Sir,” the Commander said face blanking, “you’re right of course we’re not in the business of covering for WMD violators and it doesn’t technically violate the dictates.”
“Exactly. The Spineward Sectors wants to play games?” asked Magnus his voice turning cold, “well I am prepared to show them that we in the Empire are past masters at playing games.”
Before returning to the Empire the fleet train of 5th fleet split up and made stops at dozens of worlds throughout the spine.
First imperial warships arrived to scout the area and then much larger transport ships appeared several AU beyond each system’s hyperlimit to avoid detection and began to release their cargos near a series of pre-staged asteroids, comets or other interstellar bodies that had been identified as containing sufficient biomass for future operations.
Hours and sometimes days after the imperials jumped away that the cargo began to stir and then wake up. The first thing it did was move toward the nearest identifiable source of biomass.
Then once that was completed they began to build and reproduce. When every last scrap of biomass had been converted the newly built Bug Ships turned toward the life giving radiation of the nearest star.
All over the seven sectors of the spine Bug Swarms began to move on their carefully selected target worlds.

The Deposed King

5 comments

Jamison Hutchinson - August 31, 2018 6:31 am

Awesome! I am desperately trying to get my story done so it can be of use to you. But man, this portends a real rough day for the Spine.

Still, Magnus is forgetting something; if this doesn’t break the Spine, it will forge it into something stronger than what it is at the moment.

Damm i know Jason isn’t gonna like this, but if – or rather when XD- the Old Confederation comes up short against the bugs (i’d not be surprised to see them either “tactically retreat” from the spine or hunker down around one or two core worlds adapting a wait and see attitude, or alternatively spend themselves taking out a couple fleets), that would be the ideal time for Jason to make his move and send in his forces to aid some of the beleagured worlds of sector 25 and possibly beyond. Of course, this is gonna devestate a whole lot of worlds out there no matter what anyone does, even core worlds especially in sectors 26 and 27 could fall, but for once Jason isn’t gonna be taking it up the *** from every news agency out there, at least i hope not – the people of the spine can’t be complete idiots, so accusing Jason of planting bugs throughout the spine should be too far from reality for most, making his “fake” news a lot more belivable. Still, clearly the Spines darkest hour is coming up, and while the imperials/ confederates may be able to fool the citizens at home, they sure as heck aren’t convincing anyone in the spine that they aren’t deliberately targeting defenceless civilian worlds.

A kingdom forged in (bug-)fire, should be the real titlle of this bookXD

Also, congrats on completely overturning most of my expectations for the book in a single chapter, though i don’t see how the bugswarms and the political mess can be cleaned up in one book – that’s not to say i’m not looking forward to seeing it. This one seems awesome.

Middleton diden’t really find a way to talk to the bugs, it was just one aberation with brain damage. Most bugs don’t want to converse with biomass though, they want to consume it to grow the swarm. Nor do they – thankfully – act outside of the parameters they were designed for, at least thats my understanding from a discussion we had on the facebookpage, “Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet”.

So I think making peace with them is extremely unlikely to happen, possibly less likely than a total confederation victory in an all-out war with the empire. Which is significantly less than 1% currently.

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Hey there guys. This is your friendly neighborhood Author, stopping by for a quick biography. As you probably guessed my name isn't Luke Sky Wachter. My real name is on the cover art. For those of you who've been interested enough to take a peak at it. It is true that I'm publishing under my Son's name. As you can probably guess from that little factoid, I'm a huge Sci-fi buff, having named my son after such an iconic figure and all that.